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Pillars of Eternity by Obsidian Entertainment (Kickstarter) [Up: Teaser]

D

duckroll

Member
piratepwnsninja said:
I'm just happy that companions are at the forefront at the beginning here. So many games are happy to just throw someone at you to say, "Look, you have a buddy!" but they don't think about ways the player can actually utilize them well from a game play perspective, nor do they take the time to actually give the player a reason to care about them from a narrative standpoint outside of the main narrative. For the most part, lots of these characters just end up kind of being there.
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Well, this is an Obsidian game... :)
 
D

dude

dude
Yeah, it's great to know they are treating the companions with this much care, they are pretty much my favorite feature in BG2 and PS:T, they are what made these games jump from great to truly amazing.
 
P

piratepwnsninja

Member
duckroll said:
Well, this is an Obsidian game... :)
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Of course. It's just refreshing to hear it. One thing I've really enjoyed about Kickstarter, at least for a few of the developers, is the behind the scenes thinking that goes on for the projects. I mean, I've been working on games for 7 years. I often wish I was in a position to have these sorts of candid conversations with fans and explain our thinking with certain things. So I guess part of it for me is being envious too.
 
P

PastorOfMuppets

Banned
It looks like this game is doing about 60K/day so I figure at this rate, it might end up being the most successfully funded video game Kickstarted ever in terms of pure gross.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
- Build a tone. This starts as soon as you start writing – and sometimes, the tone surprises me once I actually start writing. The cadence of how the character talks, their slang, the subjects that interest them – I start a conversation with the character and try to imagine what I’d like to ask them about as players… and often, I try to steer the conversation into game mechanic help, gifts, new perks and skills to learn from the companion (which we used a lot in Torment, KOTOR2, and Dead Money, for example). The player should feel that they are gaining something of value from the interaction, even if the interaction isn’t mandatory – exploring a character’s personality should be as much fun as exploring a dungeon.
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Its like...he's an actual writer
 
S

superdeluxe

Member
I told feargus that I had heard George Ziets had some time on his hands, and he responded he has heard the same thing heh. Feargus is such a tease heh
 
S

SerArthurDayne

Member
duckroll said:
Okay, fixed that. Will add updates below the Stretch Goals from now on.
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Thanks, I agree with the advice, and it will definitely help newbies and me when I am curious to check progress.

Also just upped my donation to 250.00. Still hope they do a 300 tier for a non-signed hardcover book, because even 250.00 is more than I have any right to be spending, and I know I will need to sell a kidney to hit $500. Book and signed box soften the blow a bit, and maybe some new freebies will come along later.

edit: Hey! Apparently it comes with two digital copies now. I think it is new. They have silently added things like the strategy guide, digital goodie bundle, etc. Anyways, If I sell one or both digital copies for cheap to buddies I can more easily justify the 250 tier. Obsidian- Give me 4 digital Copies with $500 and I can lie to myself enough to justify the bump.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
I'm curious to see what crazy awesome Kickstarters can roll after these. Right now, I'm spending more on Kickstarter than mainstream AAA games, indie, or anything else, really...
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
zkylon said:
I'm curious to see what crazy awesome Kickstarters can roll after these. Right now, I'm spending more on Kickstarter than mainstream AAA games, indie, or anything else, really...
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They just need to kickstart a new Tie Fighter, then I can play it and die smiling.

Anyway, I'm following this campaign with great interest about what they are going to say and show, but as soon as it's closed and they stop releasing updates I want forget about this game very quickly.
Otherwise waiting for it is going to be soulcrushing.
 
Cute Dragon Here

Cute Dragon Here

Member
Heh. I decided to raise my pledge to $120, if only for the physical-ness of the game. (International shipping is expensive.)

That should help a lot with my bandwidth caps. That way, I should also be able to gift someone a digital copy. Hmm... Who would that lucky soul be?
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Have they confirmed if we'll get a busty, shy female companion to easily romance?
 
S

specialguy

Banned
PastorOfMuppets said:
It looks like this game is doing about 60K/day so I figure at this rate, it might end up being the most successfully funded video game Kickstarted ever in terms of pure gross.
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Because everybody remembers Baldurs Gate so fondly....that was the golden age of PC gaming.

This thread sucks because the game is so far away.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I hope this game is far more Fallout/Arcanum than Baldur's Gate.

Maybe it's just my distaste for the AD&D system.
 
S

Sober

Member
EatChildren said:
I hope this game is far more Fallout/Arcanum than Baldur's Gate.

Maybe it's just my distaste for the AD&D system.
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I think the problem with the (A)D&D systems in BG1/2, IWD1/2 and PST is that those were written for turn-based combat (PnP). In the case of Obsidian, they are purposely doing real-time w/ pause, so they can write an entire combat ruleset that exploits it better than the D&D system ever did (pretty sure most people enjoyed ToEE combat though).

Or did you mean the stupid counterintuitive "smaller is better" in AD&D? It still confuses me to this day since I started with 3.0E.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Lancehead255 said:
Actually I doubt if there'll be any romances. With Sawyer as project lead I highly doubt he'd allow romances, Avellone writing them or no.
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I disagree. Sawyer is extremely accommodating in terms of what to include in a given game as long as there's a place for it. NV is a poor example because there was never companion romance in the Fallout series to begin with. All of Sawyer's other games never made it to the market. :p
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
WorstUsernameEver said:
The twist is that she's an elder horror that devours your soul with the tentacles between her legs. And she's also a cultural Marxist.
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All this does is arouse me further.

Sober said:
I think the problem with the (A)D&D systems in BG1/2, IWD1/2 and PST is that those were written for turn-based combat (PnP). In the case of Obsidian, they are purposely doing real-time w/ pause, so they can write an entire combat ruleset that exploits it better than the D&D system ever did (pretty sure most people enjoyed ToEE combat though).

Or did you mean the stupid counterintuitive "smaller is better" in AD&D? It still confuses me to this day since I started with 3.0E.
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I honestly don't know. Planescape's writing soars, but I'm not a big fan of Baldur's Gate to be honest. The entire Baldur's Gate series is in my "unlikely to ever replay and don't have particularly glowing memories of" basket, whereas I'm much more drawn to Fallout and Arcanum. I'm not sure what it is about the AD&D formula, but it so happens to be in my least favourite acclaimed CRPGs.

But then there's Planescape, so there must be something there I like.
 
L

Lancehead

Member
duckroll said:
I disagree. Sawyer is extremely accommodating in terms of what to include in a given game as long as there's a place for it. NV is a poor example because there was never companion romance in the Fallout series to begin with. All of Sawyer's other games never made it to the market. :p
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He would most probably be disapproving of romances that lead to sex, to the disappointment of EatChildren. :p
 
S

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Romances should be there, they just should make sex insignifficant, not climax like Bioware does it, because it's stupid. There should be an emphasis on a relationship, sacrifices, may be jealousy. If a companion done well people will care about her/him and designers will be able to use that attachement to enhance some dramatic moments/hard choices.

Unfortunately it seems that Bioshock Infinite will explore relationships first, i.e. just a shooter, not an RPG.

Edit: enhance, not alleviate
 
D

dude

dude
subversus said:
Romances should be there, they just should make sex insignifficant, not climax like Bioware does it, because it's stupid. There should be an emphasis on a relationship, sacrifices, may be jealousy. If a companion done well people will care about her/him and designers will be able to use that attachement to enhance some dramatic moments/hard choices.

Unfortunately it seems that Bioshock Infinite will explore relationships first, i.e. just a shooter, not an RPG.

Edit: enhance, not alleviate
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Yeah, BG2 did it good: One romance will be over if you choose sex (and not in the good way), one has a character who uses sex without emotions - so it's unimportant in the romance, and one has it only at the very end. And all sex is implied sex.
 
L

Lancehead

Member
subversus said:
Romances should be there, they just should make sex insignifficant, not climax like Bioware does it, because it's stupid. There should be an emphasis on a relationship, sacrifices, may be jealousy. If a companion done well people will care about her/him and designers will be able to use that attachement to enhance some dramatic moments/hard choices.

Unfortunately it seems that Bioshock Infinite will explore relationships first, i.e. just a shooter, not an RPG.

Edit: enhance, not alleviate
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Are you saying no RPG has ever explored relationships? You're wrong.
 
M

mclem

Member
TucoBenedictoPacifico said:
They just need to kickstart a new Tie Fighter, then I can play it and die smiling.
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While the branding's not likely to happen for obvious reasons, I'd love to see Holland/Kilham regroup and try one. Although I have no idea what Kilham's up to these days, but Totally Games theoretically could do one.


We do still have Chris Roberts' mysterious project on the cards, but we know little about that... and besides, it's not quite the *same*, is it?
 
H

HP_Wuvcraft

Banned
That was a great lil' bit on character writing.

_Keiichi_ said:
Arcanum is a great rpg.

Arcanum is also a shitty videogame, everything, to the battle system to the freaking menus, is cumbersome and awful. Moving stuff between inventories should not be a quest on its own.
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So, it's a good game but also a shitty game?

Are you saying that RPGs need to have shitty mechanics in order to be called RPGs?

Please tell me that's not what you are saying.
 
D

Durante

Member
HP_Wuvcraft said:
So, it's a good game but also a shitty game?

Are you saying that RPGs need to have shitty mechanics in order to be called RPGs?

Please tell me that's not what you are saying.
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He's saying that it's a good RPG despite having many deficiencies in game mechanics. (I agree)
 
S

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Lancehead255 said:
Are you saying no RPG has ever explored relationships? You're wrong.
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May be Planescape did it, I'm yet to find out, but I can't remember any other RPG except The Witcher2 where a relationship was meaningful. May be some japanese indie game has it but I don't have a platform to play them
 
D

dude

dude
subversus said:
May be Planescape did it, I'm yet to find out, but I can't remember any other RPG except The Witcher2 where a relationship was meaningful. May be some japanese indie game has it but I don't have a platform to play them
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Play BG2. Romances there were amazing, even if they were terribly buggy.
 
H

HP_Wuvcraft

Banned
subversus said:
May be Planescape did it, I'm yet to find out, but I can't remember any other RPG except The Witcher2 where a relationship was meaningful. May be some japanese indie game has it but I don't have a platform to play them
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Planescape totally did it.

Witcher 2's romance is only passable in the context of "well they are together in the books, so I guess that's cool". Triss and Geralt barely have a relationship in TE2.
 
P

Perkel

Banned
HP_Wuvcraft said:
Planescape totally did it.

Witcher 2's romance is only passable in the context of "well they are together in the books, so I guess that's cool". Triss and Geralt barely have a relationship in TE2.
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Because they are more like fuck buddies that's why she was so concerned about his memory of yennefer. World of witcher and what witcher experienced earlier is established. In books Triss also was second and always had hots for Geralt. Problem was that Geralt had love-hate relationship with Yennefer. So when Geralt got fed up with Yennefer or they had big fight usually Triss was there somewhere looking for her chance.

Also it isn't told in games but sorceress and wizards have rather intriguing sex life, first they have sex like minks after few decades of learning magic in magic shool (meaning no sex in school), after 10-20 years they start to experiment with other gender, after they learn that it isn't that different they stop to have sex altogether. And few interested can make orgasm on whim by magic to her/himself or to anyone they want. They mainly do it with other magicians mainly from friendship not love. Of course this is generalization but there are cases like Filipa (from witcher 2) which was mainly lesbian and in books she was at some point in relationship with Triss.

Most of magicians aren't in love relationship so cases like Triss or Yennefer are rather unique.

Lore is amazing in my opinion and i didn't even mentioned that most of magicians in reality were/are ugly including Triss and Yennefer. Magic is used mainly for selfish reasons.
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
Perkel said:
Lore is amazing in my opinion and i didn't even mentioned that most of magicians in reality were/are ugly including Triss and Yennefer. Magic is used mainly for selfish reasons.
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I didn't read these books myself, but I've also been told (and I found quite interesting as idea) that often those (female) mages don't shape themselves as beautiful women just for vanity or lust, but because they realize it's an excellent tool of manipulation, when dealing with men.

And that, by the way, is the reason why every single female caster in The Witcher looks like the playmate of the year.
 
S

superdeluxe

Member
EatChildren said:
I hope this game is far more Fallout/Arcanum than Baldur's Gate.

Maybe it's just my distaste for the AD&D system.
Click to expand...


Someone asked a question about what current game they could play that mirrors the most of the vision of PE and feargus said BG2. Mainly due to the combat system. He said he didn't pick planescape because the combat in that was not the best or something like that
 
S

superdeluxe

Member
In regards to BG2 romances
I always felt a little wrong going after jaheria and aerie. Jaheria because she was getting over the death of Khalid and aerie because she was this completely young/innocent type. Vicona always felt like the right match
 
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